21

E.—2

In the case of teachers' salaries, teachers' house allowances, and scholarships it will be seen that the balance or deficit, as the case may be, is practically covered by the corresponding liability or asset. For these items the Department makes grants to cover the actual cost. The transfers made during the year amount to only £6,246 17s. 3d., as compared with £34,683 Bs. lOd. for the previous year. The fall is due to the fact that Education Boards have adopted the method suggested by the Department of charging items directly to the account to which the receipts or expenditure relate. This has done away to a large extent with the necessity of making transfers to adjust accounts at the end of the year. Table F3 shows the salaries and allowances paid to officers of Education Boards other than teachers. Tables F4 and F5 give a summary of the receipts and expenditure of Education Boards from 1877 to 1912. Excluding the expenditure on buildings, which is dealt with separately below, the following summary shows the chief items of expenditure for the past five years : — 1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. £ £ £ £ £ Board's administration .. .. 39,730 42,392 41,396 43,697 47,772 Incidental expenses of sohools .. .. 38,077 40,374 37,394 42,831 44,723 Teachers'salaries* .. .. ..489,042 554,012 582,288 608,958 643,921 Training colleges '.. 19,949 22,425 27,467 28,992 29,756 Scholarships and district high sohools 31,892 32,136 32,811 32,620 33,361 Manual and technical instruction 48,212 47,927 56.049 65,195 77,131 * Excluding house allowance. The increase in the expenditure on teachers' salaries is due in the main to three causes —the increased number of children receiving instruction, the yearly increment of £5 in teachers' salaries provided by section 7 (3) of the Education Amendment Act, 1908, and the replacement of most of the pupil-teachers in schools with an average attendance of 81 to 160 by adult assistants. In the case of manual and technical instruction the increase is mainly due to the increased number of classes for manual instruction (especially woodwork, agriculture, and cookery) in connection with public schools, and to an increase both in the number of and the attendance at day technical schools. The expenditure also includes several payments which fell due in the previous year but were not actually made until 1912. The following table shows the proportion of expenditure on administration to the whole expenditure, and the corresponding proportion of the incidental expenses of schools (through the School Committees), the figures for the five years previous being also entered for purposes of comparison :— Boards. Committees. Total. 1907 .. .. ..4-7 4-8 9-5 1908 .. .. .. .. .. ..4-7 4-5 9-2 1909 .. .. .. .. .. ..4-6 4-4 9-0 1910 .. .. ..4-5 4-0 8-5 1911 4-3 4-2 8-5 1912 .. .. .. .. .. ..4-3 4-1 8-4 The corresponding percentages for the several Education Boards are printed in Table Fl2. As is to be expected, the ratio of expenses of administration to total expenditure is highest in the smallest district (9-4). Out of the capitation paid to Education Boards for general administration purposes the Boards provide School Committees with funds according to scale to meet incidental expenses of schools. «anh as lighting, fuel, cleaning, &c.